Friday, April 06, 2007

Thanks to Johnny of The Fire Sermon, I've just gotten a "thinking blogger" award!!! Thanks Johnny!!!

The terrible thing about this award is that when you pass it along to other blogs that make you think, you can only pick five. If your blogroll looks like mine, you can see how this might be a problem... Fortunately my choices have been narrowed down a bit since a lot of thought-provoking blogs have already gotten the award. :D

I'd like to start outside of Outer Blogness with one of my favorite atheist blogs: Jewish Atheist. J.A.'s perspective is particularly interesting to me since he was raised in a strict religious household, has since become an atheist living a secular lifestyle, and yet is still interested in his heritage and in maintaining a dialog with the faithful of his community. Probably a lot of people will think it's funny of me to be pointing out this parallel since it's such an ingrained Mormon thing to want to claim the Mormons are like the Jews that people raised Mormon can't stop doing it even after they leave the fold. ;-) But seriously, even though there are plenty of differences, there are some interesting similarities. In particular many of my ex-Mormon friends will probably appreciate his discussion of what it would have been like if he'd married before leaving orthodoxy and a post where he talks about his interactions with family and community.

Then I'd like to include The Hathor Legacy. This blog is all about analyzing how female characters are portrayed, which is a topic I love to think about!!! Now, I know I march a little bit out of step with some feminist common wisdom because of the fact that I think "objectification" is not a useful theory for such analysis, and I'm guessing many Hathor Legacy bloggers disagree with my unorthodox ideas. However, everybody always agreeing with one another is not a recipe for critical thinking, and since this is an award about "the thinking blogger" I'd like to go with one where there's room for some thought-provoking disagreement.

Now I'd like to pick a few from Outer Blogness, but there are really too many insightful blogs on this list for me to narrow it down to just three slots. So rather than going with people from my brilliant family ;-) such as my brother or my cousin or some of the other obvious choices, I was thinking of maybe using this to highlight some thoughtful blogs I haven't linked to lately but who deserve some more attention:

Stay At Aum Mom is a fun one: "Looking for fun in the parenting Zoo." That's one of our quests at my house too. ;-) Interestingly, "Stay At Home Mom" has the same handle "Mel" as another thought-provoking blog Æsahættr. And since the two of them are confusing me by having the same name (you guys aren't the same person, right?) they can share slot #3 on my "thinking blogger" awards list. :D

Then there's Todd's Hammer, which contains some interesting political insights in addition to the occasional Mormon topic.

And to finish off the list, there's Holly of Self Portrait As. Holly puts the fun back into being the crusty professor that the students are intimidated by. ;-) Hopefully this award will help bring her blog out of hibernation. I saw some signs of life on one of her secondary blogs where she posted an amusing piece about the dangers of "literature abuse".

Voilà!!!

Sorry to the many thought-provoking blogs I've missed, but since this is an exponentially-reproducing award, there's a good chance it will eventually come around to you!!! ;-)

Actually this is one reason why I normally don't like playing these sorts of tagging games -- I don't want the bloggers who didn't get listed to think I think their blogs are less worthy of note. But it's more like of those blogs that should be highlighted for thought-provokingness here's a batch you might not be aware of... :D

Hey Rebecca!!!

I hope you'll like my little suggestions. I agree about Holly's blog being cool :D

Actually -- sorry if this is a disappointment, but -- my post for Monday isn't about objectification. I'm going to be reviewing Hemant Mehta's I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith through an Atheist's Eyes. This is a fun book, and I'm psyched because I just finished it and I already have a bunch of things to say about it. Stay tuned!!! :D

p.s. For fun, I traced this award all the way back to the originating blog. It was a pretty long chain for a meme that started only about two months ago!!! But the funny thing is that it looks like it bascially started in atheist blogspace -- with some blogs who are on my atheist blogroll -- but passed through history teachers, mommy blogs, and then Mormon blogs before getting to me!!! What a fun tangled web the blogosphere is!!! :D

Thanks for thinking of us! We're having a great time trying to decide who to pass the award onto next. ;-)

I think you're right-on when you say that "everybody always agreeing with one another is not a recipe for critical thinking," but I also think that we've got more common ground than not, which is also a handy thing for fostering some good, thoughtful dialogue. I really enjoyed your post on objectification, and agreed wholeheartedly with your conclusion that "The feminist movement should be encouraging women to explore their sexuality openly, not limiting what female sexuality is allowed." I don't use the term the way that you seem to have seen it used in the past, but I think the slipperiness of it as a word is in large part what you were pointing out, so that was very thought-provoking, too.

Anyway, I don't mean to blather on - I just wanted to convey that I find your blog very good thinking material, as well as an entertaining read.